Painting Journal

Though I have not had as much time as I would like, I have been able to sneak in the attic enough to get a little farther along. I am not sure I like the size of the red berries. It is interesting getting the perspective of looking at it on the monitor. I am getting a different feel for it, right at this moment, then the feeling I was getting while painting. Like stepping back, this is yet another way to check the work.

Illustration Friday – simple

This is not an illustration in my opinion but rather a painting. But I got to thinking about how simple a white bowl is. A small white bowl placed on the table, nothing in it, nothing around it. Honestly it is was the hardest still life I painted in college, painting a white bowl. This is not my college painting, but a piece I did last year, for a show in July. It took me weeks, actually maybe more than two months come to think of it. When you really study a white bowl, there is absolutely nothing truly white about it. What eludes me is that fine area between shadow and hightlight. That is a precious, sensitive area, that if not captured correctly you can lose the integrity of the whole piece. http://www.illustrationfriday.com is a site that provides a word weekly to illustrate.

Painting Journal

Usually when I start a painting it is because I get an image in my brain. I have had this one floating around in there for 3-4 weeks now and am finally ready to “release” it. I am not sure where this one came from. Whether I woke from a nap, day-dreamed in the car or while whisking eggs for a Sunday breakfast. But it was a very clear vision of red “balls” on a muted, warm green background, with branch-like stems cutting through it. I thought I might track the progessions of this work. These are some of the quick sketches. It will be interesting for me to see if I “stick” with them. Sometimes my original image gets foggy, yet I can “see” it so clearly when I am not focused on anything inparticular. On the left, I have just given 4 store-bought 8×10″ canvases 2 extra coats of Gesso. The right picture is a basecoat of the “green” I was dreaming about. This seems too flat. To give it some feeling, I used white, straight from the tube and just gently brushed it in for softness. My notes on the sketches, say the shapes are yellow. I don’t know what I was thinking, but these shapes aren’t even in my original “dream” image. Yellow just didn’t fit. My original image didn’t even include 4 panels, just the one in the upper left corner. I guess I am already veering from my original dream and sketches! It is my intention to make sure each panel can stand alone and work as well as work in the grouping. The second pic is what little I have been able to start with in oil.(the green undercoats are acrylic)  I grabbed some real branches from our kindling pile and dug in. The branches on the far right are real, not painted. So far I am feeling enough energy to keep going. Sometimes I have gotten to this point and don’t feel a connection.